Agree. But isn't great for both to be in the mix? Also, did anyone have any inkling the Braves would play like they have...in spite of BJ Upton and Dan Uggla being an almost sure out every time through the line up, Venters and OFlarety out for the year and all the other injuries. Also this....it seems that losing Chipper was addition by subtraction. Who would have ever thought that? Fun team to watch the last month or so.

Last time I cared about the Braves, David Justice was on the team. Hard to believe that it's been 20 years since the Atlanta Braves became respectable. It's also hard to believe that for all of the success that the Braves had had, they haven't won it all in almost 20 years.

Last time I cared about the Braves, David Justice was on the team. Hard to believe that it's been 20 years since the Atlanta Braves became respectable. It's also hard to believe that for all of the success that the Braves had had, they haven't won it all in almost 20 years.

I think it has actually been 22 years since they became respectable and they did win it all in 95. Surely you recall? Nothing will be quite like it was in 91 in the worst to first season but this is a really fun team to watch with a lot of young stars. Andrelton Simmons is having a defensive season on par with some of the very best in the history of the short stop position at the major league level. I was a kid growing up in Sandy Springs when both the falcons and Braves arrived in ATL and, in truth, the Braves always gave me way more to care about than the Falcons even though I fairly rabidly follow both.

Ha! Every day. I remember watching both Chipper and Andruw Jones playing Single A...and they were the second wave of young stars. The team they have now may not become the dynasty that era was but they could quite good for a long time. Heck, when was the last time the Yankees won it all?

I am not sure the braves could have a big enough line to keep the Falcons D from crushing their pitcher, but can the Falcons hit Braves pitching?

dont quit whatever job you have, day or night.

I became a Braves fan because of my Dad....He enjoyed watching football, but his passion was the National Pasttime...I wonder if more Gen X, Y's, Millennials and the current crop of whiners are not embracing MLB as much because old fuddy-duddy's who used to watch and keep score with pencils are dying off? Not geting thier own offspring into the mix as much as the NFL? Or is it all in the branding and marketing?

In any case, I am enjoying this season and this young team. I hope they go all the way!

Mos def a game passed down in most cases. I had kind of forgotten how guys used to keep score up in the stands. Do they even have that section in programs any more with the blanks and who is left who knows how to do it? My grandfather was a printer by trade and ran an old and now very much outdated machine called a linotype. Hell, it became outdated in his working lifetime. Anyway, I don't know if he ever even attended a game but he had to type in all those box scores for years and years so he knew all the players, scores, etc. As an old man he would watch the Braves on a black and white TV in the Earl Williams era. They were pretty bad. But I remember him getting me to show him how someone held a bat and him looking through my baseball cards with me. I had one of Sonny Jackson and he said, "That's an Afro American." I think he was kind of showing off his sense of non-discrimination for using that term which was pretty new at the time, I suppose. And for his time, place and class he was pretty enlightened in those regards but it was funny to me. Who here is old enough to have played Strat-o-Matic?

First, it's a tremendous waste of time. 3 hours a day for half of the year. Basketball is quite a time waster as well. Football is 3-4 hours a week. Sometimes I watch other games, but it's usually just the Falcons.

Second, my grandfather was one of those die hard baseball fans. In 1994, he kept saying, "the baseball players are going to go on strike and I won't have anything left to live for." Sure enough, the baseball players went on strike, and my grandfather died like a week later. The 1995 season was bitter sweet. After that season, I drifted away from baseball, partly because my grandfather was one of the few people that I talked to about baseball. But also, my daughter was born in 1996, and wasting 3 hours a day for half of the year was no longer something that I considered to be important.

The rest of my family has no interest in sports other than Nascar. Even so, they do take the time during the football season to watch the Falcons games with me.

Football was made for television. Baseball was made for radio. It's kind of like a back drop to summer for us. you don't run quickly to the bathroom so you don't miss a play like with football. You kind of marinate in the game and if you have not ever played it much I can see how it would be pure tedium. OTOH, a monkey could understand and be entertained by football.

not to sidetrack this thread, (Pudge feel free to move this to the Lounge) but tonight ( weather permitting ) Im gonna take my 7 year old to see the Braves...But to be honest, I dont think I would ever take him to a night game at the Dome. At least not until he's like 10 or so..Why?

Frankly, it has nothing to do with location ( as I live downtown) but I have seen more ugly sh*t go down at Football games, then at Baseball games, even though do to price/proximity I go to 3x the amount of baseball games then football games. And a night game at the Dome? In the cheap seats? It's not too 'sportsmanlike'. The smack talking and fisticuffs fly and while it's entertaining to watch, it's really annoying when it happens right next to you. I dont want to have to shield him from two drunk chicks pulling each others hair, or having him watch a 'f*** you fest'.

Sure, it happens at the baseball game too, it just happens more at football games. And night games? Fuggetaboutit...

I think it has actually been 22 years since they became respectable and they did win it all in 95. Surely you recall? Nothing will be quite like it was in 91

YOUR RIGHT NOTHING WILL BE LIKE IT WAS IN 91. I went to all post season Pitt games at home; and went to all Twins games in the World Series at home. My father was with me and he doesn't drink; so out off respect between innings I killed about 4 beers by myself and you go back to your seat and I couldn't even feel it.

So the last game I doubled my beers. Meaning I drank about 8 beers between innings. I still didn't feel it but when the game was over I couldn't walk. Stayed in bed for 3 days; and that moment in 91 was the day I QUIT DRINKING...... Damn I miss those beers sometimes but life never has gone back to normal; dealing with crap straight is hard without something to take the edge off....

BTW MY dad keep those states on paper like it was a cross word puzzle. Most people don't understand how much strategy a baseball game has!!

I recall your having said that "bender" was your last. Congrats on 22 years of sobriety. I'm not a teetotaler but also not a heavy drinker though I've had my days back when. It just began to feel kind of stupid to wake up and feel like you were in the throes of chemo therapy for what? I've been surrounded by enough friends and fam with drink issues that, if nothing else, my vanity made me want to steer clear of that condition.

One of my greatest regrets as a sports fan was that I didn't go up to Fulton county stadium in 91 and just hang even if I couldn't get into the games. I went to a couple of games in 92 including the final loss. That was a great era in ATL sports. As great a success as the Falcons have had the city has not fallen in love with them like they did those early 90s Braves teams. Hard to say why. Maybe because the ascent has been more gradual.

As to baseball and strategy...OMG. If you think you know something about it then you have to hang around someone who does for a little while. I read George Will's "Men at Work" in the early 90s. It profiled a pitcher (Hershiser), a hitter (Gwynn) and a mgr (LaRussa). By the time you were through with it you felt like saying, "Whatever happened to just throwing, running and hitting?"

Like an intentional walk with one out, to load the bases to try for a double play?

Sending anyone toward second, so they guess the shortstop or second baseman will cover second; then just hit it to the hole the shortstop or second baseman vacated. (hit and run)

With runner on third; have him go to home base and have batter bunt to get a run.all of these must be done with only one out, or no one out. (suicide squeeze)

Well wait; their's about 97 more so you just got to know these plays to really get the strategy!! When I was 10 I knew baseball stats like Pudge knows his football stats.....It was fun, but I wouldn't have ever guessed someone drank before or after a game. Baseball must be more important than having a beer (:

LaRussa is generally the guy credited with bringing computerized analysis and strategy to the game sort of like Landry did with NFL, if I'm not mistaken. They break things down to most miniscule variables like lefty versus righty in late inning situations with man on first and less than two outs, etc. You always hear about pitchers "locating" their pitches and it can be as much about the defense they have set up behind them as it is fooling the batter. It appears less fluid than some of the more kinetic sports like hoops and football but there is still very much a chess match going on. Still, as the cliche' goes, 90% of the game is pitching. A starter who is dealing is more impactful than the best QB. One of the great lines in "Men at Work" was Orel Hershiser saying something like not only could most people not hit MLB pitching most people could not even catch it....not to mention the "routine" grounders that invariably are moving so fast you hear them whizzing as they come your way. The natural instinct is to dodge it!

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